Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances
through September 30th, 2004.
Beginning Balance $3,357.74
Credits $300.00 Member contributions
$1.30 Interest on our savings account
------------
$301.30
Debits $84.43 Pumpkin Rent for October
$61.02 Electricity for September
$91.58 Phone Bill
$135.00 DSL September 15 through October 15
$5.00 Change of address fee (see below)
------------
$377.03
Ending Balance $3,282.01
Our current balance breaks down as follows:
$3,025.47 General Fund
$173.99 Silly Hat Fund
$60.00 Spare Parts Fund
$22.55 Infrastructure Fund
The money is distributed like this:
$398.27 Checking account
$2,883.74 Savings account earning 0.55% interest annually
We had no new members in September. We are currently at 71 members, 68
of whom are paid through at least October 15th. (The others expired
recently and are in a grace period.)
Notes:
- Every Michigan corporation has to have a registered agent with an
address in Michigan. The address isn't allowed to be a P.O. Box.
Since 1996 I have been the registered agent for Cyberspace
Communications. I moved last summer, so we had to submit a form with
the state telling them my new address. The filing fee is $5.
- For some reason, we only received one Paypal payment this month, and
it was $2 for a handbook. $1.64 (which is what's left after Paypal
took their cut) is below the minimum withdrawal amount for our account
($10), so I left the money with Paypal, and it will go on next month's
report.
- For the last two years, September has been the end of the long spell
of red ink for Grex. That is, we lost money April through September,
but rebounded in October. So far 2004 looks the same; let's hope we
get the same bounce next month.
Thanks to everyone who contributed in September:
aruba, charcat, dpc, gelinas, jying, krj, robh, and scott.
If you or your institution would like to become a member of Grex, it
only costs $6/month or $60/year. Send money to:
Cyberspace Communications
P. O. Box 4432
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4432
If you pay by cash or money order, please include a photocopy of some
form of ID. I can't add you to the rolls without ID. (If you pay
with a personal check that has your name pre-printed on it, we
consider that a good enough ID.) Type !support or see
http://www.cyberspace.org/member.html for more info.
81 responses total.
Here's some interesting stats. I checked the finance reports for September of each of the last four years-- Month-ending balance September 2001-- $5,943.92 September 2002-- 5,093.51 September 2003-- 3,804.31 September 2004-- 3,282.01 Thats an average decline of $887 a year the last four years.
Further checking
Ending balances
September 1996-- $4,186.47
September 1997-- $3,468.05
September 1998 $3,391.75
September 1999- $5,196.01
September 2000-- $5,067.85
I can't find a September month end for 1995, but absent that, the last
time Grex had less money than it does now at the end of a September was
ten years ago, September 1994, when the ending balance was $2,681.89
Its also an eye opener to look at the treasurer's reports for 1994 and realize that at the time, Grex was only paying $25 a month for rent at the dungeon and $20 for the phone line charge. Expenses have more than tripled, while the month end balance ($2,681.89) for September ten years ago is only six hundred less than it was this past month.
If Grex would get rid of its xenophobic policy of requiring identification for membership, it would have more money.
I echo and completely agree with mfp's #4 .
Listen, sonny. I'm a xeno and Grex doesn't make me feel phobed; you got that?
Then why don't you have a mambership, child ?
Richard - You're right that Grex was paying $25 for the Dungeon in 1994, but that was before we moved in there. The $20 phone line was for our internet link to ICNET - the incoming the phone lines are lumped into the "CE payment" of $197/month. (CE = Ken Ascher, in whose warehouse Grex lived.) I haven't checked all of Richard's numbers, but they sound right to me. Most of the treasurer's reports since 1993 are in ~aruba/reports, if anyone wants to look at them.
Richard, I would factor out the "Infrastructure fund" from September 2001 and 2002. There was a $1024 donation to that fund, essentially a capital investment (?), in Sept. 2001; that money remained in September 2002 but most of it was spent on the NextGrex project by the time September 2003 arrived. The way you've drawn your first sample, you don't account for the arrival of that large capital gift, but you do treat its spending as normal operating costs; I think that substantially exaggerates the decline.
If you claim that the xeno...? stance towards ID is to blame for the decline in Grex's bank balance, you failed Logic 1. As far as I can recall it has always been a standard part of membership policy for Grex.
This response has been erased.
Re. 10: that's entirely untrue, spooked. No-one's claiming that Grex's failure to purge itself of the xenophobic ID rule CAUSED the loss in income. We're claiming that Grex is losing income -- and this is shown to be true by the statistics Mr. Richard did us the favour of compiling -- and that loss of income could be alleviated by removing the xenophobic ID rule. I know for a fact that if it were removed, I would promptly give Grex sixty dollars for a membership. I suspect that several other people would also be more willing to donate. I don't suspect anyone will be less willing to donate. It seems obvious, then, that Grex will make money when it gets rid of the silly ID rule. I don't think this is complicated stuff.
But you would then need to take into consideration those of us that would not contribute either money, time, or serving as staff or board without it.
As I already said, I don't think anyone's quite that petty. Irregardless, the most JUST thing to do is to combat xenophobia in all its forms, and thus Grex SHOULD remove the restrictions, even if it means they have to sacrifice the money and time given by people who are petty.
#12...I don't think that Grex getting rid of its id requirement policy for membership would bring in more money. I think there are valid legal reasons why it, or any organization, should want to validate its members, have proof of who they are. Whats the big deal mfp of sending grex something that has your name on it, which is all they ask. I don't believe it even has to be a photo id. On the other hand, I do believe that while grex shouldn't change its ID policy, it should change its policy requiring money for membership. A mandatory "donation" isn't a donation at all, it is dues. Grex is a non profit and does not request dues. It asks for donations. It strikes me, and always has, as exclusionary to "require" a donation to be a voting member of the community.
And before somebody calls me on contradicting myself, because I pointed out grex's financial problems and then said "don't require donations for membership", let me explain. The key word is "exclusionary" What I think an examination of the past few years financial reports indicates is that the current setup isn't working. Grex's membership isn't growing, and as a result it is losing money at an unacceptable pace. Grex needs more members, and you cant get more members if you are being exclusionary. If you get a hundred new members as a result of not requring donations, and being more INclusionary, and of those hundred new members, sixty donate anyway, that is better than only getting fifty new members who all donate. You make more money by involving more people, and you do that by opening up the membership and putting as few rules as possible (except for IDs) as pre-requisites Also grex has many loyal users in India, Pakistan and other places who would love to become members. But they cannot because it is too difficult to donate. Either the exchange rate makes the membership "dues" too expensive, or it is too difficult to exchange their money for u.s. dollars, or it is too difficult just to pay the money. Or they are students in a poor country on a strict budget. Either way Grex's requiring a monetary contribution for membership is exclusionary to them.
Richard, I appreciate your paying attention to the finances. But this idea of not requiring a payment for membership, which you've proposed a number of times over the years, makes even less sense to me than Reagan's trickle-down theory. Grex needs money to pay its bills, so we ask people who care about it to help. That's all there is to it. I know you say that you contribute your ideas, and that ought to be good enough. Everyone's ideas are welcome on Grex, and always have been. But at the end of the month, I can't draw on our bank account of ideas to pay the rent. That's just reality.
I still need someone to explain to me why the word xenophobic is being used in connection with the ID policy. If we shouldn't think it's a big deal to have ID- and we're just being paranoid by requirign ID- how paranoid are those of you who don't want to provide it? Do you think Grex is going to use your ID for nefarious purposes? Are we going to sell your name to a telemarketing company? Seriously here, those of you so against the ID policy- why are you so afraid of sharing your ID?
Because it's a convenient thing to complain about.
Some of us still value our freedom and would like to see Grex continue in the same spirit.
Tod- try a new one. That logic doesn't follow.
I don't want to be FORCED to give ID on account of how it's a pain in the ass an it's unnecessary.
Well, it *is* necessary, currently, for grex. Whether it should be necessary is in the eye of the beholder. You refuse to acknowledge that, and still nothing changes. Let's see tod make a proposal, if he's really serious about something other than complaining.
By complaining about it and analyizing it, I acknowledge that it is necessary to produce identification to get a Grex membership. What I'm saying, of course, is that that requirement is Grex's fault, and it could function perfectly fine without requiring it.
I kinda like the idea of setting some low bar that folks have to get over in order to vote in our elections and telnet out. They don't have to have a degree in computer science, or belong to a church, or do volunteer work in their community. They just have to find a checkbook and send in six bucks ($18 to qualify for voting) and some sort of ID. We've even set the type of ID requirement to be so easy that if someone wanted to fake it, well, it wouldn't challenge even the less bright among us. But they'd have to make some sort of effort to scam the system. How easy is that? Besides, you'd all have one less thing to bitch about. Somehow, it feels right, to keep it easy for ya.
Nonetheless, Mary, I think I should be able to get a membership without being forced to provide any identification whatsoever. If Grex doesn't want my money, oh well.
I think Grex should look for a different location. HVCN's computer is located in some Washtenaw County Building. I believe they pay a merit fee, which is quite modest, but otherwise live there for free. It's not ideal. Staff can only access the machine during business hour. If HVCN goes down on friday night, it doesn't get a reboot until Monday morning. But they get much better net connectivity than we do. The library seems like the better deal than that. Access would be better, we could get phone lines, and one of Grex staffers is on their staff. Yeah, maybe we couldn't always get in there when we wanted to, but it's not like we are always right on things now. We get worse access, but much much better connectivity and much much lower cost. That's a bargain in my book. We'll be cutting costs and improving services. To do this, we'd need to sell the idea to the Library board. One of our members is on their board. We could probably get a number of locally respectable people to speak in our favor. It would take some work to accomplish this. It's not my kind of thing at all. We need someone to pick up this torch. If we can't swing it with the library, then we should look around for other institutions with good connectivity who would be willing to share some. The county and the library can't be the only plausible candidates around.
I fully support this proposal, and thank Professor Wolter for attempting to improve the system instead of attempting to embarrass and malign the character of its users.
If someone among us wanted to pick up that ball, we'd need some information first: What is the reasonable minimum footprint for our equipment, either in shelf space or floor space? How many electrical circuits or outlets would we need? How would we offer to handle running telephone lines or ethernet or power from wherever it is nearest in the building to where it would have to be to meet our needs? What other things should someone know before attempting to move this notion forward, even informally? (I ask because I am in a position to speak to some people who might have influence in this potential decision, and it would be nice to have some specifics to offer. I'm not referring to dpc, but other voices which may carry weight with the Library board.)
Thanks, Eric.
The nextGrex computer is a full tower case. I'd guess that is about 8" by 18" footprint, and maybe two feet tall. It would be very nice if we could keep a monitor and keyboard hooked to it, but that is not strictly necessary. We'd probably also want to keep the terminal server. This is about a foot square and a few inches high. Three modems. That's probably the minimum. Wouldn't mind tossing in space for Gryps. That's a standard half tower. If anyone wants to pursue the retroGrex project, we'd need quite a bit more space. Maybe two by three feet of floor space. Could probably fit the other two computers on top of it. Assuming no retroGrex, everything could plug easily into one powerstrip. At the library, we'd be in their machine room, and running power and network would be trivial. Other places - we'd be willing to offer help with wiring, but no institution in it's right mind is going to let a bunch of unlicensed amatures work on their wiring. A more interesting question would be how much bandwidth Grex would consume. I have no idea. I'd actually feel most comfortable if they had some mechanism to cap it. I don't even know if such mechanisms exist. The key to selling this, I think, is convincing people that Grex is worthy of their charity. That, much more than the technical issues, is going to be the key. Actually, I'd much prefer the job of selling HVCN to the library. Not only is the list of web sites hosted on HVCN really an impressive who's who of local charitable and non-profit organizations, but they used to host the library's web pages and now host the Ypsi library's web pages. I think the case for Grex as a valuable community service can be argued, but not as easily as that.
Thanks, Jan.
maybe grex needs to consider getting rid of its remaining dialin lines, save for one for staff and member use. The need for dialin lines isnt there anymore, since 99.9% of all users coming here presumably have other 'net access and could telnet in or use backtalk. Just keep one line, make access to it a member perk, and for staff use.
Thanks mfp!
You're welcome, naftee! Thanks for thanking me!
I use dialin lines and so do some friends, keep them please.
I think we might be able to drop a line now with no ill effects, but it is an important part of Grex's charitable mission, and there are quite a few people who use them.
re #$22- pain in the ass or not, it doesn't make it xenophobic. :)
It does, though. If you looked at the options listed for showing proof of ID, you'd know that one of them's presenting it to the treasurer in person. This CLEARLY is much easier for someone who's already part of the Ann Arbor Grexist Community (AAGC) to do that it is for me to do. It's xenophobic.
WHat are the recent statistics on dial-in lines? We both use them as do two of our friends (who have ISP access but one is only M-F 6-6 and it would take me a year to teach him to telnet).
Re resp:32 - certainly bandwidth-capping mechanisms exist; whether any facilities you're considering colocating in have them is another question. It is possible to set it up yourselves with an additional computer (set up as a firewall). I haven't done it myself, but I understand the theory...
Re #39 - David, I offered to meet you in your home town last summer; you could have showed me some ID then. (I drove right through your town on 401.)
STILL, Mark.
Great suggestions on colo, Jan. I think the library makes the most sense in the big picture.
re #23 nothing changes. Let's see tod make a proposal, if he's really serious about something other than complaining. When I feel the debate has covered all the angles sufficiently and if there is enough interest, I will consider making a proposal. Do you have anything to contribute other than calling us whiners?
RE #39- but that's just ONE of the ways, that's not the only ways. Given the number of forms of ID that are acceptable, I'm still not understanding the usage of the word xenophobic. Please try again.
Are copies of all member's ID in possession by the treasurer?
Re. 46: Listen. If I could become a member without having to stand up, I would. If I have to stand up, though, Grex isn't getting my money.
re #48 You can't do paypal sitting down?
To get a verified account, I'd have to go to the bank to get a chequeing account and to see how much money Paypal deposits in it as a way to make sure it's my account and all.
Re 45: The horse is quite dead. I don't think your beatings are going to get anymore plowing done.
Re #47: Yes.
re #51 That's quite perverted and rude.
ploughing
re #48- so how about if you had to lay down instead of stand up? ;) I'm still not hearing how this is xenophobic though.
If it's not obvious to you, it's only because xenophobia is so, uh, ingrained into your system that you have trouble spotting it.
I don't care if grex is/isn't xenophobic or Xena the Warrior System. Labeling it doesn't advance your argument a whit.
re #56- well Duh, I've been on Grex forever... So yeah, define xenophobia for me, wouldja sweetie? :)
The quality which you support but you don't REALIZe you support it.
YEAH, LIKE IN GEORGE ORWELL"S 1984>
But what does Xenophobia MEAN!? :)
Yes, xenophobia IS mean.
If Grex was xenophobic, there wouldn't be a "newuser" program.
Nonon. Nono. Because people can get an account but then they can't be a full part of society. That's what xenophobia has always been about. Foreigners are welcome to come to America, but there are certain xenophobic SHIBBOLETHS created to prevent them from ever fitting in completely. This is found inthings like WELCOME TO AMERICA> NOW< SPEAK ENGLISH! This is found in things like denying them certain rights, like voting and outgoing telnet priviledges.
Re 64: No. Wrong.
No. Wrong.
Would xenophobic mean not allowing new users from places like India?
No. It would mean making difficult and costly for them to become full members of the community when native full members of the community have no such problems.
FOr instance, my name was changed in a xenophobic manner; without contact.
Re. 64: I think you and Naftee need to look up the word cuz neither of your examples fit the written definition. Grex is not preventing anyone to become a full member. They're specifying conditions by which a person can become full members. If people don't want to fulfill these specifications, that's _their_ choice. We may or may not agree with these rules, but in the end that's irrelevant. Why? Because those who sent in their ID's agreed to follow Grex's ID rule, so there's no incentive for them to change it. In the end, it comes down to, "If you don't like the show, change the channel."
Why is there such a tendency for folks to tell each other to leave Grex? Can you imagine if GW went around saying "If you don't like the way we are running things, leave the country"?
I thought that's what he WAS saying...
And there was the saying once, "America: Love it or leave it." Though I don't know its origin.
re #71- It's more along the lines of showing choice. People make a choice to be here, if a person doesn't like the rules as they are determined they are free to leave. Of course the other option is to try to change the rules.
"Xenophobic" aka "racist"? Cool, now I can watch libs fight libs - while knowing that ID is nothing remotely "evil". <snort>
Why don't you try to learn English first.
He's Chinese.
With Libs.
No, that's blacks.
Oh, okay.
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
You have several choices: